PDP, Cross River Government Disagree Over Privatization Agenda

By CrossRiverWatch Admin

The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has vowed to halt the privatization agenda of the Cross River State Government.

The Chairman of the party in the State, Venatius Ikem made the vow shortly after his swearing in, in Calabar on Wednesday.

“We are going to mobilize the people against the plan of Governor Ayade to privatize all the industries, which are not working, to himself.

“He used state resources and deceived the people that he was building this or that and now he wants to sell them to himself. We will not allow that.

“We are sounding a note to the governor that the time for him to abuse our people has passed and we will watch closely and mobilize every resources at our disposal to stop any attempt to privatize any industry, whether working or not working to himself,” Ikem said.

The State had announced plans to privatize 46 industries and businesses. An online poll was conducted and on Tuesday, the head of the privatization council John Odo who is the Director General of the Geographical Information Agency inaugurated a seven man technical panel to collate the results.

Odo said the exercise was an improvement from the past ones due to the referendum whose results were been collated.

“There are three options in the questionnaire and these are: complete privitization, government/private sector partnership and government complete ownership of our industries. I call on people of the state who are interested in owning any of these industries to form cooperatives or engage technical partners to take ownership of the industries which are our common wealth”.

He said extensive sensitization has been carried out by reaching out to traditional institutions, religious organizations, trade unions, organised labour and student bodies with large volumes of responses being received both online and print from members of the public.

“The Privitization Council has extended invitation to our Advisor, KPMG and relevant MDAs namely, Due Process and Price Intelligence Bureau, State Auditor General, State’s Bureau of Statistics and Investment Promotion Bureau and Public Private Partnership to witness and as well monitor the exercise.”